Some New Fashion Ads Go Mad Men Retro Today

For this week's issue of Newsweek, devoted entirely to the swinging sixties and Mad Men's return to television, the ad guys (and ladies) at that magazine (full disclosure: I worked there until 2009) came up with something clever: They asked the brands who bought pages to go retro with their creative. Sadly, there's not much in the way of fashion advertising — not one dress shirt, in fact, which just seems plain wrong — but you gotta appreciate the efforts from Bloomingdale's, Johnston & Murphy, and United Colors of Benetton, the last of which somehow turned their brand identity into some sort of statement about The Space Race. Nice. Still, the real winner here is probably Geico (or, rather, G.E.I.C.O), whose gecko spokeslizard has become tiresome by 2012, but feels right at home in 1965. If you don't believe us, Ad Age has every single page from the issue, which hits newsstands today.

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